January 16, 1986: Apple introduces the Macintosh Plus, its third Mac mannequin and the primary to be launched after Steve Jobs was compelled out of the corporate the earlier 12 months.
The Mac Plus boasts an expandable 1MB of RAM and a double-sided 800KB floppy drive. And it’s the primary Macintosh to incorporate a SCSI port, which serves as the primary approach of attaching a Mac to different gadgets (a minimum of till Apple abandons the tech on the unique iMac G3 upon Jobs’ return).
Macintosh Plus: A worthy sequel to the unique Mac
The $2,600 Macintosh Plus (roughly $7,486 in immediately’s cash) shipped two years after the unique Macintosh pc debuted. In some methods, it was the primary true sequel to the Mac. (The intermediate Macintosh 512K mannequin was just about similar to the unique, except extra built-in reminiscence.)
The Mac Plus featured nifty improvements that made it one of the best Mac of its time. One of many greatest modifications? A brand new design meant customers may lastly improve their Macs, one thing Apple embraced through the late Nineteen Eighties and early Nineties. (Apple co-founder Steve Jobs would by no means enable this sort of DIY functionality.)
Though the pc got here with a not-insubstantial 1MB of RAM (the primary Mac got here with simply 128K), the Mac Plus went even additional. The brand new design let customers simply develop to 4MB utilizing socketed RAM boards.
An expandable Mac
This philosophical change — mixed with the flexibility so as to add as much as seven peripherals (laborious drives, scanners, and so forth.) — made the Mac Plus a significantly higher machine than its predecessors.
Relying on whenever you purchased it, the Mac Plus additionally supported some extremely helpful software program past the standard MacPaint and MacWrite. The wonderful HyperCard and MultiFinder let Mac homeowners multitask, utilizing a number of purposes without delay for the primary time.
Should you owned an Apple pc again then, you doubtless additionally purchased Microsoft Excel or Adobe PageMaker, which have been Mac-exclusive applications for a time. (The previous was unique solely due to a horrible deal between Apple and Microsoft.)
The Mac Plus additionally proved fairly a success within the profitable schooling market.
An all-in-one workhorse
The Macintosh Plus was technologically outmoded by the Macintosh SE and Macintosh II, which got here the next 12 months, however that didn’t sluggish it down.
Other than a 1987 case shade change from Putty (beige) to Platinum to suit with Apple’s new Snow White design language, the Mac Plus continued because it was till October 1990 — giving it a prolonged 4 years-plus lifespan.
For a lot of, this was the primary Macintosh that didn’t merely trace at nice issues to return, however truly delivered them. Traditionally, its standing as the primary post-Steve Jobs Mac additionally makes it essential.
Did you personal a Macintosh Plus?
Did you personal or use a Macintosh Plus at college or work? What are your reminiscences of this groundbreaking pc? Go away your feedback under.
P.S. Mac Plus makes it to the flicks
Oh, and starting Apple’s lengthy string of on-screen appearances in high Hollywood films, right here’s the Mac Plus in 1986’s Star Trek IV: The Voyage Residence.
